We have covered the University of Pennsylvania’s transgender swimmer several times, and the question has always occurred to me: if ‘Lia’ Thomas really, really, really wants to be accepted as a woman, why engage in activities which prove him so radically different from real women?

Lia Thomas wins second Ivy League title with record-setting 200m swim

By Ryan Glasspiegel | Friday, February 18, 2022 | 8:30 PM EST

Getty Images. Click to enlarge.

Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer for University of Pennsylvania, won her second Ivy League title this week with a record-setting effort.

Friday night, Thomas won the conference’s 200-meter freestyle competition with a time of 1:43.12, beating second-place Samantha Shelton by over 2.5 seconds.

Thomas’ finish set a new record at Harvard’s Blodgett Pool, besting the previous mark of 1:43.78, and comes a day after she won the Ivy League’s 500-meter freestyle. Her time of 4:37.32 in Thursday’s event was also a Blodgett Pool record.

Thomas swam for three years at Penn as a male, before transitioning to female.

There’s more at the original.

Will Thomas was, according to the University of Pennsylvania’s athletic department’s swimming and diving 2018-19 team roster, a sophomore member of the men’s team. He was “Second-team All-Ivy in the 500 free, 1,000 free, and 1,650 free after reaching the ‘A’ final of the Ivy League Championships and finishing second overall in each of the events.” The 2019-20 roster lists him as Lia Thomas, and states that he “Competed in four of Penn’s eight regular season events (as a male, and) won the 500 free against Villanova (Nov. 15).” The 2017-18 roster notes that he was “Ivy League Championships qualifier in 500 free (A final), 1000 free (A final), 1650 free (A final).”

Penn, an Ivy League school, erased Mr Thomas portrait from those rosters. For the 2021-22 season, he is now listed as Lia Thomas on the roster, complete with his portrait after ‘transitioning’. His individual biography page no longer lists his top times, or his past accomplishments on the men’s team, and simply notes that “All 2020-21 Ivy League winter sports were canceled on November 12 due to a nationwide outbreak of coronavirus COVID-19.”

Bruce Jenner, the 1976 Olympic Decathalon winner who thinks that he’s a woman now, said:

I’ve said from the beginning, biological boys should not be playing in women’s sports. We need to protect women’s sports.

Obviously this is about Lia Thomas who has brought a lot of attention to this issue. First of all, I respect her decision to live her life authentically. 100 percent. But, that also comes with responsibility and some integrity. I don’t know why she’s doing this. For two reasons: 1. It’s not good for the trans community. We have a lot of issues in the trans community that are very difficult and very challenging. We have a suicide rate that’s nine times higher than the general public.

Her hands are bigger. She can swim faster. That’s a known. All of this is woke world that we’re living in right now is not working. I feel sorry for the other athletes that are out there, especially at Penn or anyone she’s competing against, because in the woke world you have to say, ‘Oh my gosh, this is great.’ No it’s not.

I’ve asked it before: how does Mr Thomas, who grew up male, who competed athletically with men, doing well and occasionally winning at the collegiate level, justify in his own mind beating a bunch of real girls? How does Mr Thomas, in his tremendous concern to be accepted as a woman and not a male, justify competing in events which only serve to point out the differences between him and biological women? And now a third question has come to my mind: if someone was actively trying to sabotage the concept that #TransgenderWomenAreWomen, what would he be doing differently from what Mr Thomas is doing right now?

In the Bluegrass State, the General Assembly is working on legislation which would ban biological boys from competing as girls in sports, and other states have been doing similar things. Naturally, what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal gave activists OpEd space to complain about the bill. These legislative attempts might still exist had the world never heard of ‘Lia’ Thomas, but it is unquestionable that his actions have increased the pressure for them.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, which has been beating the drum for the acceptance of Mr Thomas as a legitimate women’s sports contender, reported on his latest victory:

Penn’s Lia Thomas wins third title, breaks another pool record in final day of Ivy swim championship

Penn secured itself as the top freestyle team in the league, as just before Thomas’ feat, junior teammate Catherine Buroker also notched a second Ivy League title in the 1,650-yard freestyle.

by Ellie Rushing | Saturday, February 19, 2022 | 8:41 PM EST

BOSTON ― For the third night in a row, University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas stood atop the medal stand and was named an Ivy League champion.

And in as many days, she broke a third Harvard University Blodgett Pool record, and a second Ivy League meet record in a thrilling 100-yard freestyle race.

It was the closing day of the Ivy League championship, and Thomas was seeded second in the 100 freestyle to Yale University’s Iszac Henig. In the preliminaries, Henig beat Thomas by about a second and established a Blodgett pool record.

Further down:

That performance including Penn securing itself — by far — as the top freestyle team in the Ivy League.

“There’s no secret, it’s just work,” (junior Catherine Buroker) said of that success.

Well, hard work, and having a biological male compete against real women, anyway.

That’s the part which will never go away: Yes, the University of Pennsylvania won the Ivy league Championship in women’s swimming, but everyone will know that Penn’s team might not have done so were Mr Thomas not competing, and many will assume that Penn just would not have won without him competing. As sixteen members of the team noted, in an unsigned letter, Mr Thomas went from being ranked “#462 as a male to #1 as a female”.

Was there ever any more convincing evidence that Mr Thomas is simply different from real women, in ways that actually matter when it comes to competitive sport?

What Will Thomas, in his selfishness, has done is to bring Penn a championship that will forever be questionable in people’s minds, and to convince people who were on the fence about transgender participation in women’s sports that no, it just isn’t fair. What more damage could he have done if he had consciously tried?